Beat a single player campaign using the Iron Man preset and only Black Bear

Achievement Guide for Unbearable

Achievement won on 08 Apr 17TA Score for this game: 3,285
Posted on 09 April 17 at 22:28

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At first, I thought this achievement was going to be insanely tough. However, with the setups I used, I found this achievement very manageable, even easy at points.

The first thing to understand is the rules for the Iron Man preset. You can not use multi-player revivals (which doesn't matter for the achievement, as it is specific to single player), you do not have shields (neither the automatic shield nor the manual one used by pressing and holding 'X'), and enemies are harder (although I didn't really seem to notice too many differences).Secondly, you must use Black Bear. This is actually a huge help for Iron Man preset, as Black Bear's distortion ability grants her a shield that makes her invulnerable for several seconds.

The Setup:Primary Weapon: For the weapons, I used the Pulse Emitter for my primary weapon. It has decent rate of fire and power. Also, the beams grow larger as it passes through the screen giving you a larger area of attack. This is essential as you will be spending most of you time dodging bullets and not necessarily focusing on your aim. This particular weapon also easily tears through the bubble shields used by some larger enemies and bosses.

Secondary Weapon: For the secondary weapon, I used Homing Missiles. Similar to above mentioned strategy, you will be focusing on dodging. Therefore, the automatic targeting allows to you concentrate less on attacking.

Power-ups: At the end of stages 1 and 2 of each level, you will have the option to select a power-up perk. I concentrated only two perks: Attack and Distortion. (continue reading to find out why distortion is more important than defense perks).

Purchases: After stage 3 you will have the option to make a purchase using accumulated credits. There is a certain amount of randomness involved, so you may have to change up your choices or use a board reset (1000 credits) to try and replicate my strategies.

The most important purchase for this game mode is the ENTROPY CAPACITOR. It turns your distortion gauge into a shield when your shields are down. Since the Iron Man preset removes your shield, having the Entropy Capacitor gives you a roundabout way of still having a shield, which makes this mode WAY easier. In addition, there seems to be some glitches (in your favor) that assist even more (read the tips and strategies section below for details).

As far as additional purchases go, it is really dependent on personal preference although you obviously don't want to waste any money on abilities that won't have any effect in this game mode (anything related to shield regeneration or revivals). Aside from Epic Distortion (which I highly recommend), I wouldn't spend any money on normal perks.

-Keep in mind that you have unlimited lives. You still respawn at end of stage bosses, so there won't be unnecessary time wasted on replaying entire levels.

-Obviously, you will want to be pretty familiar with the game and the bosses. I managed this before the 'You only Live Once' achievement, but after all the other specific run achievements. So I had a pretty good idea what to expect ahead of time.

-The Entropy Capacitor is key to making this achievement manageable. The sooner you can purchase it, the better. Once you have it, your distortion meter is now your shield. The 'distortion' shield seems to be far more durable than the initial blue shield and defense perks don't really seem to have much impact on this durability (which is why I mentioned above to concentrate on distortion perks over defense).

-There seems to be a positive glitch associated with using the Entropy Capacitor. While your meter is filling, any hit will decrease the progress. Per usual, once the meter is full you will see a 'B' indication, letting you know that your distortion ability is ready. If you get hit at this point, the meter will decrease and 'B' indication will disappear (as expected). HOWEVER, your distortion ability is STILL IN STANDBY. This means that even if you get hit several times and your meter is visibly depleted, you can still press 'B' and activate your invulnerability power. Sometimes it gets a little buggy though. You may have an empty meter that no longer fills. At this point you must use the distortion ability and the meter should start refilling normally. Or, in rare cases, you may be granted an infinite number of distortion abilities (you can check out a clip from profile page to see it in action).

-Upgrade anything associated with distortion! I would upgrade distortion perks any time I was given the option and purchased any abilities that directly affected distortion (see my purchases above). By the end of the game, I was able to go from an empty meter to a full distortion meter in about 12 seconds. Ultimately, this breaks down into a constantly regenerating shield in a game mode where you are intended to play without one.

-Use your melee attack as needed. There are many bosses and strong enemies that have 'safe zones' where you can just hang out and spam melee attacks without getting hurt. Find these areas and pick up the Damascus Blade if you see it in the store.

Hope this information helps and best of luck!

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